


To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

by callmeonetrack



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 05:18:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9307028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeonetrack/pseuds/callmeonetrack
Summary: After Kat's death, Lee & Kara come to a momentous decision.





	

He doesn't know what makes him head for the memorial wall. Lee's been through the passage en route to other places, stopped briefly on occasion to add a pilot to the layers of old photos, but he's never lingered there before. His ghosts live in his head.

Still, when he tries to find Kara after the funeral, his feet gravitate toward the wall on their own. He just knows somehow that she'll be there. And even after everything, he hopes, foolishly, that this once she'll let _him_ be there.

She is standing at the end of the hall, still as a statue, staring at the photos. Lee walks to her quietly, feeling like he's intruding, wondering if he's overstepping, baffled as to what to say.

It turns out he doesn't have to say anything at all. He's still trying to come up with something that doesn't sound like an empty platitude when Kara turns and wraps herself around him. Lee's stunned but only hesitates a second before his arms raise to enfold her.

She doesn't make a sound, but where her cheek is pressed to his jaw, the skin is wet and he knows she's been crying. He rubs circles on her back, one hand threading through her hair, his lips pressed to her temple.

They're in the middle of a public hallway. It's far too intimate for a CAG consoling his flight instructor, and even too much for friends comforting each other. But Lee can't stop. He's already tired from a week with no sleep and mounting pressure and radiation sickness looming, and he's grieving too. Kat was _theirs_ , not just a fellow pilot, but she belonged, in a sense, to him and Kara. They were responsible for her. They raised her, in a way. He wonders if this is a fraction of what it feels like to lose a child, then thinks fleetingly of Gianne, whose picture is not on that wall but whose face still haunts his nightmares often, and Lee forces himself to stop thinking entirely.

What he's left with then is just sensation. The feeling of Kara in his arms, her body pressing his from head to toe, curves fitting to angles. In a flash, he's suckerpunched with memories and desire so sharp he can taste it. But he's married now. And so is she. So he steps back.

Kara startles, lifts her face, tear-stained, eyes wide and questioning. Lee coughs, lets his eyes skip away back to the wall. "You should get some rest, Kara." He expects a stubborn refusal or a colorful suggestion about where he can shove his advice, but Kara just stares at him for a moment before nodding.

He walks her back to the senior officer's quarters feeling an odd sense of deja vu as he pushes open the hatch and they walk inside. It's quiet, the racks filled with pilots trying to catch some shut-eye between CAP shifts, and Lee stands awkwardly a moment, before remembering that he really doesn't belong here. "Are you going to be alright, Starbuck?" he uses her callsign deliberately, striving for distance already. "I should go back to my quarters."

Kara doesn't answer him, doesn't acknowledge him even. She's just standing in the middle of the room, staring at an empty bunk. He's not sure what's so fascinating about her rack at first, then he realizes it's not Kara's, but Kat's. She rooms in here not the junior officer's quarters because she's a senior pilot now, of course.

_Was._

Was a senior pilot.

He grasps Kara's arm gently and looks around, then leads her over to her own bunk (the pyramid ball on the shelf gives it away) at the end of the room. She sits, still silent, and Lee is worried, but he doesn't know what to do.

So he busies himself being useful, dropping to his knees and stripping her shoes and socks off. He doesn't touch her clothing because his sense of self-preservation kicks in, but he puts a hand on her shoulder, and pushes slightly, until she turns and lays down. He perches next to her for a second, and racks his brain for the right thing to say but all he comes up with is, "Try to get some sleep, Kara."

Her eyes flicker to his but she doesn't acknowledge that she heard him. Lee wonders if she's in shock, but the thought of dragging her down to see Cottle isn't the most appealing. He's weary, just bone-tired suddenly, and he sighs, and shifts to get going, but just as he's about to get up, Kara's hand clasps his, where it still rests on her shoulder.

"Kara?"

She blinks, then scowls, the stubbornness he expected before materializing now. She swallows, hard enough that he sees the motion, and he readies himself for an argument.

"Could-- could you stay?"

Lee freezes.

"Just for a while."

He shouldn't. He should go back to his quarters. Dee is no doubt expecting him. He should go. He needs to go.

Kara must sense he's about to say no, because he can see her face darken, even in the dim light of the bunkroom. The sight of it banishes his indecision. Lee sits back down and bends to pull off his boots.

She scoots backward, up against the wall and Lee slides in next to her, then tugs the curtain closed for fear of prying eyes. He hasn't tried to double up in a standard-issue rack in ages, not since before the Pegasus, and it's an awkward, tight fit at first, as he tries to lay very still, so that he's not touching her. It's a futile attempt and he’s stiff and uncomfortable.

Kara doesn’t seem to notice though. She shifts next to him, bicep pressing his without care. He listens to the sound of her breathing, waiting for her to drop off, and just when he thinks she has, she speaks.

“Her name was Sasha.”

Lee blinks in confusion, thinks he heard her wrong. “What?”

“Kat. I found out she wasn’t…wasn’t who she said she was.” Kara pauses, her voice sounding small and wrong in the darkness. “I- I accused her of pretending,” her tone quavers slightly, “of lying her way into the company of good people. Said she wasn’t smart enough to accept who she really was.”

Lee is quiet for a moment, processing. Then he reaches for Kara’s hand in the dark, and threads his fingers through hers, squeezing lightly. “Maybe none of us are.” He thinks of Dee, alone in their quarters, three decks below, and of Sam, on some civilian vessel out there in the black. “Maybe that’s all any of us are doing. Pretending.”

Kara doesn’t answer, but after a few seconds, he feels her grip on his hand tighten. Lee turns to face her only to find her eyes already locked on him. He shifts closer and so does she, until there is no longer even a careful margin of empty space between them. Kara swallows again and he watches the quiver of her throat.

“Maybe…”

Lee holds his breath.

She reaches up, fingers sliding slowly on his skin, till she’s cupping his jaw against her palm. And then she moves, pressing her lips to his. It is simple and steady, chaste almost. Yet Lee’s entire body tightens, senses overloaded as his heart lurches in his chest and his brain flickers from _yes_ to _no_ then back to _yes_.

It’s wrong, but he doesn’t care. He needs this. Needs _her_. He’s so sick of denying it. It’s as if all the anger and hurt that he nursed so carefully for two years swirled like so much sweat and blood down the shower drain after the dance. And all he has left is _this_ , this terrifying, gut-churning need for Kara Thrace to be in his life again.

Lee’s willing to take her any way he can have her.

He squeezes the hand he’s still holding, and wraps his other arm around her, pulling her closer, nearly on top of him. His lips part against hers, and the kiss is no longer chaste, mouths slanting and crushing in urgency, tongues clashing and sliding.

It’s Kara who breaks the kiss, rearing back, breathing hard. Wide, fearful eyes stare at him and she gasps, “Maybe…we should… stop…” His heart sinks, protests already forming on his tongue, even as she continues, the final word rushing out with shaky breath, “…pretending.”

Lee stares at her in wonder and he can’t think. “Kara, what—?”

She licks her lips, teeth worrying the flesh for a moment, as she stares back. “If I leave Sam, will you leave Dee?”

Blood rushes to his head and makes his ears ring, and Lee wants to ask if he could possibly have heard her correctly, but the terrifyingly expectant look on Kara’s face proves that he did. Something dark and heavy unfurls in his chest. She’s asking him to leave his wife.

She’s offering to leave her husband.

“Kara, you’re…” he swallows hard, his voice breaking, “sure?”

She nods slowly, eyes never leaving his face. Waiting for his answer.

For the first time since he’s met Kara Thrace, Lee is the one who holds their fate in the balance. He thinks for the briefest of moments that he could be cruel, hurt her the way she hurt him. But that idea is subsumed instantly by the possibility. He could have this. Have her. In his bed. In his arms. Every day.

No more pretending.

His answer is the swift, sure press of his lips against hers, as he cradles her face in his hands.


End file.
